ARENA — Pepper's Ghost (review)

ARENA — Pepper's Ghost album cover Album · 2005 · Metal Related Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Warthur
When I first listened to it, Pepper's Ghost seemed to be a point where the writing team of Clive Nolan, John Mitchell and Mick Pointer, who as a trio had produced extremely effective compositions for the last few Arena albums, found itself falling into a rut. Certainly, on an initial pass, the formula this time around see,s much the same as on Contagion - fairly straight ahead neo-prog with hard rock-bordering-on-heavy metal guitar work giving things a bit more muscle and grit - but the songs were less immediately gripping to me, without a love-on-first-listen standout offering like the opening one-two-three punch of Witch Hunt/An Angel Falls/Painted Man on Contagion.

On further consideration, though, I think I was being unfair. Certainly, if you're after bombast the closing track Opera Fanatica offers plenty of that, and stylistically there are some mild differences between this and Contagion; in particular, the heavier side of the sound is dialled back (though not completely), steering Arena back towards their neo-prog centre of gravity a tad but, crucially, with new lessons learned from their stint in harder and heavier waters, so they aren't merely just returning to well-trod ground.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Human Rosin Melodic Metalcore
HATE BREEDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Through The Hell Hardcore Punk
ENEMY 906
Buy this album from MMA partners
Lightmatter: Rebirth Deathcore
EARTHGAZER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Eye Of Horus (Lightmatter EP Pt. 2) Deathcore
EARTHGAZER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Galaxy888 (Lightmatter EP Pt. 1) Deathcore
EARTHGAZER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Agremorta - Adrocitas (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 3 days ago
Agremorta - Ploratus Umbra (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 3 days ago
Agremorta - Vertex Membrana (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 3 days ago
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR - The Temple Of Curved Space (Official Track Stream)
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR
adg211288· 3 days ago
In Sulfur - The Gate (OFFICIAL VIDEO) 2022
IN SULFUR
Bosh66· 4 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed